COMMON-SENSE LAW IN GAME PROTECTION 



535 



can never restore our noblest game 

 bird. 



In this country, deer hunting has been 

 subjected probably to more abuses than 

 any other field sport, until the term has 

 become almost synonymous with cruelty 

 and butchery. Any one reading Charles 

 Dudley Warner's story of deer hounding, 

 who has not been moved to pity, must 

 be cold-hearted indeed. Under former 

 conditions does and fawns were the chief 

 victims of the open season. Sportsmen 



had caused their extinction. In 1S7S 

 seventeen deer procured from the Adi- 

 rondack section of New York were 

 released in Rutland and Bennington 

 counties. Thereafter these deer were 

 protected by an absolute close season 

 for nineteen years. In 1897 an open 

 season was given which has been con- 

 tinued each year since that time. Dur- 

 ing the nineteen seasons which have 

 since elapsed bucks only have been 

 killed, with the exception of three recent 



Photo by G. A. Bailey, Geneseo, TV. Y. 

 Pheasants feeding at winter feeding station of the Geneseo County Bird Club. As long as the snow was 

 on the ground they came regularly to be fed, but afterward made no use of the food put out, seeming to like 

 weed seeds and wild fruits better than the corn, buckwheat, and kaflir corn. These birds have been protected 

 for two years and are increasing in numbers 



endowed with sentiment therefore hailed 

 with enthusiasm the advent of a law 

 which protected these helpless creatures. 

 From the practical standpoint Vermont 

 furnishes the best illustration of the 

 common-sense value of such a law. 



Forty years ago deer were practically 

 exterminated in the state of Vermont. 

 There were a very few left in the wilder 

 portion of northeastern Vermont ad- 

 joining New Hampshire but throughout 

 the rest of the state merciless hunting 



years when an open season for does also 

 was given on the ground that deer had 

 become too numerous and were destroy- 

 ing orchards and otherwise damaging 

 farm crops. 



Last fall six thousand deer were killed 

 in Vermont. The average during the 

 first four years of the open season, from 

 1897 to 1900 inclusive, was only one 

 hundred and fifteen deer a year. The 

 remarkable fact is that this great in- 

 crease in Vermont deer has not taken 



